Dressed in diving suits, crewmen were busy clearing away half–rotted barrels and disemboweled trunks in the midst of the dingy hulks of ships.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne

‘They’re not used to see this sort of thing, every day, I dare say.’
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

The question for him now was: “Have I really allowed Napoleon to reach Moscow, and when did I do so?
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

This difference in disposition sometimes gave rise to a slight element of discord, but a stranger would never have noticed it if he had not been told.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

“Did I do so very bad?” “Not a bit.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser

Vastante regiones proximas Mithridate ne desidere in discrimine sociorum videretur, ab Rhodio quo pertenderat, transiit in Asiam, auxiliisque contractis et praefecto regis provincia expulso, nutantes ac dubias civitates 20 retinuit in fide.
— from Helps to Latin Translation at Sight by Edmund Luce

He then sat in the carriage with her, kissed her, experienced a great delight in doing so and thought: "If it could only be like this always."
— from The Road to the Open by Arthur Schnitzler

But jus' let me tell you, a purty young gal dressed in dem sort of clothes would look mighty sweet to me right now.
— from Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Georgia Narratives, Part 1 by United States. Work Projects Administration

‘Yes, I daresay it does sound mysterious; but it is important to me.
— from Lady William by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

[Pg 578] Draped in dark shadows, widowed Night Weeps, on new graves, with chilly tears; Beyond strange mountain-tops, the light Is breaking from the immortal years.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics by Various

All this may be readily done by dissolving bone dust in dilute sulphuric acid, mixing it with the guano, and then with a sufficient amount of charcoal dust to render the mass dry and pulverulent.
— from Guano: A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers by Solon Robinson

He says that Nell and Paul, Richard Carson and the other characters who die in Dickens’s stories are marked for death from the beginning, but that there is not one note of death in all that Edwin does or says.
— from The Problem of 'Edwin Drood': A Study in the Methods of Dickens by Nicoll, W. Robertson (William Robertson), Sir

The woman who could withhold her tenderness in such an hour as this diminished, in doing so, the value of that tenderness itself; and every minute that passed whilst it was still withheld made such a large deduction from it, that if this coldness lasted for an hour longer, John Stanburne felt that no subsequent kindness could atone for it.
— from Wenderholme: A Story of Lancashire and Yorkshire by Philip Gilbert Hamerton

The unsought honor of this public banquet, in his own country, organized by the most eminent men of the day, calling forth eulogies of him in the public press of the whole world, was justly esteemed by Morse as one of the crowning events of his long career; but an even greater honor was still in store for him, which will be described in due season.
— from Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals In Two Volumes, Volume II by Samuel Finley Breese Morse

‘The doctor is dead,’ said I; ‘the Indians have killed him, together with his wife and eight other Americans, on Monday last, the 29th, and I have buried them before leaving to-day.’
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 14, October 1871-March 1872 A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science by Various